


How to be Brave

by MalurusP



Category: Lucifer (TV)
Genre: Angst, Canon-Typical Violence, Family, Friendship, I'm in it for the long haul folks, post 3x24, some strong language
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-05-28
Updated: 2019-02-25
Packaged: 2019-05-15 01:55:09
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 12
Words: 17,708
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14781398
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MalurusP/pseuds/MalurusP
Summary: Chloe has seen Lucifer's face and has to come to terms with the truth. Given the fact that she was so wrong about so much, can she really trust that she knows who he is?A post season three fic in which everyone is going to have to be just a little bit braver than they are.





	1. Chapter One

**Author's Note:**

> This is going to be a longer story (which I already have outlined) but my writing speed is glacial so updates will come at the sort of relaxed pace that makes you stop and go, "Oh, yeah. That story existed. I forgot about it." It is also my first attempt at fan fiction so constructive criticism is very much appreciated. Thanks for taking the time to read.

Chloe Jane Decker had shit taste in men. She collected liars and criminals like some people collected old coins. She imagined them lined up on a shelf like Marcus’s stupid rocks: Dan, the dirty cop who let the whole world think his wife was crazy rather than take responsibility for his own actions; Marcus Pierce, the criminal kingpin who had plotted murder even as he flirted with her; and Lucifer… well.

There had always been something dark inside of Lucifer. Chloe had felt the edges of it, jagged and poisonous, too many times to count. It was in the flick of his wrist as he sent a man crashing through a glass wall and in his eyes as he dared a sniper to shoot him down. It was written on his back in two curved lines and, like those scars, it was a piece of him that she was not allowed to touch.

_“If you saw all of me…_ knew _all of me… you would run away.”_ he had said. And she had been running. She had turned her back on all of the strange happenings - the bullet wounds that disappeared, the hardened criminals who moaned in terror at some horror they could never unsee. And the harder she fell in love, the harder she ran. Because she was afraid that he was right; afraid that if she looked too closely, she wouldn’t like what she would see.  

“ _I_ am _the devil”_ he had told her. 

 _“Not to me.”_ she had insisted. Because he couldn’t be. Because she didn’t want him to be. Because he had finally taken another step forward and told her that he cared. Because she didn’t want to lose him. 

 _I don’t even know him,_ she realized.  

He stood in front of her now, an alien in a familiar suit. A suit ripped through with bullet holes but unstained by blood. Just like before. 

“It’s all true,” she breathed. 

“Detective…?” He sounded uncertain. It was _his_ voice, coming out of that hellish face. A knife twisted in her gut and she realized she had still been holding out hope that it was all a mistake, that it wasn’t…  

“It’s all true,” she repeated. She couldn’t think. Couldn’t move. Couldn’t tear her mind past that one thought. Her eyes tore across his face, searching the scarred landscape for something familiar to hold on to.  

His forehead wrinkled where his eyebrows might have been. “Detective _… Chloe_ ,” he corrected. “Are you alright?” He took a step towards her and she collapsed ungracefully to sit on the floor in front of the stairs. From this new angle she could see around his legs, to the shape on the floor behind him. 

_Marcus._ With a knife sticking out of his chest, there was no doubt that he was dead. She had been ready to die killing him just a few minutes earlier and here he was, lying on the floor. _Lying_. She latched on to the word. _That’s all he ever did._ And she had believed him. She had believed Marcus when he said he loved her because she had wanted so badly to be loved. She had believed she loved him back because she didn’t want to know that she had been so desperately lonely. What kind of strange acting skill had she inherited from her mother that she had the power to fool herself so completely? _I have a knack for seeing what I want to see._  

Marcus. 

Dan.  

Lucifer. 

_Lucifer._ She turned her eyes back to face the devil in front of her only to find a familiar pair of brown eyes staring back in concern. She must have zoned out because he was kneeling next to her, his hand on her arm. She drank in the sight of him, skin smooth and pale and so blessedly _normal_. Replace the smell of gun smoke with that of his usual cigarettes and he might have just come from a night on the town. She watched his lips move, saying something that she didn’t bother to hear, instead reaching up to touch his face, his hair, to feel anything she could get her hands on and reassure herself that it was real. He smiled uncertainly into her touch and she let her hands trace the line of it, across the scratch of stubble and down the unscarred line of his neck to rest on his shoulders. And then she hugged him. She felt him hesitate before wrapping a single arm around her back.  

“It’s alright,” he murmured as he stroked her gently. “Both of us are alright.” 

It wasn’t alright. But she was spent, both physically and emotionally, and so she held onto him and let herself pretend for just a little bit longer that he was only Lucifer, her partner, and nothing else. When Dan finally arrived at the scene and she reluctantly unwound herself, the trailing touch of her hand upon his arm felt like goodbye.


	2. Chapter 2

Dan crept around the corner, gun drawn and ready. It was foolish, coming in alone with no idea of what might be waiting, but be would rather shoot himself in the head than wait quietly for backup while Chloe’s life was in danger. And backup _was_ coming. He had called it in on the way over. There was no more point to secrecy anyway. If Pierce really had tried to kill Chloe and Lucifer, then he already knew about their investigation. Of course there was no way to explain the whole story over the phone so he had woven a half-truth about a gang bust gone bad. The LAPD would come down in full force in just a few minutes, but for now he was on his own. His strained his ears, listening for the padding of footsteps, or the crackle of gunshots echoing down the corridor. But the building was as silent as the grave. He only prayed it wasn’t Chloe’s grave. Or even Lucifer’s. The memory of a coffin where there had once been a woman sprang unbidden to his mind and he clenched his teeth against the possibility of seeing two more familiar names carved out in stone next to Charlotte’s. 

When he found the body, a familiar-looking knife planted like a flag in its unmoving chest, he let out a sigh of relief. Marcus Pierce. And there, huddled by the stairs on the far side of the room, wrapped in a lovers’ embrace, were Chloe and Lucifer, to all appearances safe and sound. The sight of their easy intimacy sent a different sort of pain shooting through him, a sort of jealous grief mixing uncomfortably with the joy of finding them unharmed. Dan relaxed his grip on his gun but did not lower it yet, making a sweep of the room. Guns and bodies - he couldn’t tell how many were still breathing - lay scattered amidst a museum’s worth of half-boxed oddities. Roman style busts mingled with lacquered tables and towering candelabras. A full suit of Samurai armor gazed impassively down at him across the mixture of splinters, glass, and bloodied feathers that carpeted the floor. The Sinnerman’s secret treasure trove or a host of cheap knockoffs? Dan couldn’t tell. All he knew was that nothing moved in the shadows. No gunman leapt out from behind a vase or a chair to wreak bloody revenge for their fallen leader. Finally he holstered the gun and practically ran to meet the couple on the stairs. 

They moved apart as he approached, Chloe scrambling to her feet, apparently none the worse for wear. Lucifer on the other hand, stood more slowly, almost gingerly. He looked a mess, too. His once crisp dress shirt was a nest of holes and a gash on his arm stained the expensive fabric of his suit an even darker shade of black. There was blood on his face too, streaks of it painted across his left cheek and ear and matted in his hair although Dan couldn’t see a wound. He took the other man by the shoulder anyway, pushing his head gently to the side and checking the area with his fingers as he asked, “Lucifer. Chloe. What the hell happened here? Are you guys okay?”

Lucifer slapped his hands away, not seeming to care about the mess of his face. “What do you think happened?” he snapped, shortly. “Lieutenant Pierce thought his life would be easier without us in it, insert boring bad-guy threats here, and brought some of his minions along to get the job done. Unfortunately for him, he didn’t bring nearly enough. Now if you are done asking stupid questions perhaps you could convince the Detective to seek medical attention.” His voice was tight with what Dan now recognized as worry and exhaustion. “She isn’t listening to a word I say and I doubt very much that she would appreciate me putting her under my arm and dragging her to the nearest hospital.” 

“What?” Dan gaped dumbly for a second and then gave Chloe a closer look. At first glance she seemed in much better shape than Lucifer. She moved without difficulty and her clothes were unmarked by blood, but something was off. For one thing, she hadn’t said a word yet, not even to yell at the two of them for discussing her as if she weren’t there. Her eyes weren’t focused on them but on the floor. Dan followed her gaze but all he saw was a single white feather, glowing in the light from the broken window above them. She reached out for it and Dan caught her hand. “Chloe!” This would be an official crime scene in a minute and until he knew exactly what had gone down he didn’t dare disturb it. Chloe looked at his hand on hers and turned to face him, lips parted as if to tell him something. But then she closed her mouth and the words died unspoken. Dan bent down a little so that his face was level with hers. He spoke softly. “Hey, Chloe. Can you hear me? Are you okay?” Something warm trickled down his fingers where his hand met hers. Blood, he realized. He hadn’t noticed the cut on her hand, but once he did he immediately recognized a matching stain on the stairs where she had been sitting. She must have cut herself on the debris from the window. He remembered the passionate embrace that he had interrupted, and the blood on Lucifer’s face suddenly made a whole lot more sense. He fumbled around for something to staunch the bleeding, turning out his pockets but coming up empty.

“Here,” Lucifer rolled his eyes and plucked out his handkerchief from his breast pocket. “Use this.” Knowing Lucifer, Dan half expected the other man to snatch Chloe’s hand out of Dan’s grip and tend to the wound himself. But the club owner kept a curious distance, merely handing the red fabric off to Dan with a causal flick of his fingertips before retreating back to his original position by the stairs. 

“Thanks,” Dan said. He turned back to Chloe, and after checking the wound for any lingering shards of glass, tied the red cloth tightly around it. She watched him silently, so unlike herself that he was almost tempted to slap her, just to get a reaction. “There, that’s better,” he said instead, making his voice as soothing as he could, “That will slow the bleeding until the paramedics get here. They’ll get you checked out and then you can go home, okay?” He examined her further, breath catching when he found the tiny hole in her shirt and the bullet beneath it, still embedded in her vest, directly above her heart. His face twisted into a snarl and he felt an overwhelming urge to rip out the knife in Pierce’s chest and stab it down again, and _again_ until he was satisfied.  

“Don’t worry, Daniel.” Lucifer’s voice ran like silk down his spine, and he turned to find the other man watching him knowingly. “He’ll get what he deserves. Even if that means I have to make this a working vacation.” Lucifer bared his teeth in a wolfish smile and Dan shivered involuntarily. “The Devil _always_ gets his due.”  

_“SHIT!”_ A fierce exclamation broke the moment. Or maybe it was a sneeze. The two men looked at Chloe in astonishment. She stared back at them, wide-eyed, with her left hand over her mouth.

“Bless you…?” Dan offered, cautiously. 

“Dan.” Her eyes focused on him. She shook herself, as if coming out of a dream. “Dan,” she repeated, her voice steady, if a little hoarse. “Pierce is dead.”  

He nodded, slowly, afraid of startling her back into whatever trance she had just broken out of. “Yeah… I know. Can you tell me what happened?” 

“It was a trap.” Her voice grew stronger as she spoke, the words spilling out with sudden urgency. “He wanted to kill Lucifer, knew that he would never be safe with…” she faltered and swallowed, but collected herself. “He knew that Lucifer would come after him,” she finished, “no matter where he went. He offered to let me leave but I wouldn’t go. He—” she frowned, as if trying to find the right words, “I was shot, and then…” She stopped again, stymied.  

“And then, long story short, I stuck a demon dagger in the formerly immortal bastard’s heart,” Lucifer finished for her lightly. “Game over, Devil - 1, Sinnerman - 0.”  

 _Not zero,_ Dan’s brain corrected instantly. Lucifer must have had the same realization for he frowned and some of his frivolity faded away. “Anyway,” he glossed over his mistake with a wave of his hand, “it’s all water under a very ugly bridge.” He turned to Chloe but didn’t step forward, hands clasped in parade rest behind his back. “How are you feeling, Detective?” he asked, carefully. “Back among the vocal?” She didn’t answer, didn’t even turn to look at him. His eyes narrowed. “Right…” he drew out the word, then turned on Dan instead. “And _you_ , Detective _Douche_.” Dan winced as Lucifer redirected his annoyance. “Are you planning on standing there chattering away like a girl at the school dance or are you going to do your _job_ and arrest these miscreants so we can leave? I, for one, have had more than enough of this wretched _mausoleum_.”  

“Oh, God,” Chloe started, then frowned, then continued, “Our jobs. We’ll have to report this. What are we going to _say_?”   

“Nothing, for now,” Dan decided, firmly. “I already called it in as a gang bust. Everyone will think that Pierce joined you in the field and got caught in the crossfire.” 

Chloe raised a skeptical eyebrow. “Caught in the crossfire,” she deadpanned. “Of a gunfight. Which is why he has a _knife_ sticking out of him. A knife with _Lucifer’s_ _fingerprints_ on it.” Dan welcomed the criticism if it meant her brain was firing on all cylinders again. “And what about the gunmen?” She continued. “Are you counting on them all conveniently coming down with amnesia and forgetting who killed their boss?”  

“That can be arranged,” Lucifer purred. Chloe didn’t even glance at him, but Dan saw her flinch. 

“It’ll buy us time,” he returned, unable to spare any mental energy for the strange dynamic between the two partners. “They probably won’t be able to run the fingerprints until tomorrow at least. In fact,” inspiration struck, “I’ll call Ella, have her take over from whoever they send out to examine the evidence. Half the guys in forensics worship her anyway so she shouldn’t have a problem getting in on the case. As for the gunmen, what are they going to say? If they tell the truth they’ll only be helping us.” 

“Dan,” Chloe frowned, crossing her arms, “we can’t hide this.” 

“We don’t have to.” Dan’s mind was working overtime. “We just need to buy enough time to put our report together, send it to the right people.” Even putting Charlotte’s research together with Chloe and Lucifer’s testimony, their case was more than a little shaky. There wasn’t time to gather more evidence now, but they could at least control how they presented what they had. There was the death of a superior officer to explain and Lucifer, a civilian, had struck the final blow. Dan tried to decide if this made their situation more or less complicated. _Less,_ he decided. Lucifer had both money and pull. As long as they could present enough evidence against Pierce to cause a scandal if it got out, he was fairly certain that they could talk the higher ups out of laying a formal murder charge against the wealthy club owner. Just the threat of the headline, “ _LAPD Lieutenant Runs Crime Ring Under Nose of City’s Finest”_ would be worth a hell of a lot of leeway for all of them and he was sure Lucifer knew the strings to pull to make that happen.  

He hesitated, licking his lips. The LAPD would be here any minute now. In fact, he was surprised they hadn’t arrived already. He looked at Lucifer, bloodied and pale, and at Chloe, rallied but still obviously rattled. The next few minutes needed to be handled delicately and neither of them were in any state to prevaricate. He turned to Chloe. “You’re okay, right?” 

She nodded, arms still crossed defensively. “Yeah, Dan. I’m fine.”  

“Okay.” He hesitated a moment longer, glancing at the red handkerchief still soaking through with blood. “Okay,” he repeated, convincing himself. “Then you guys get out of here. Don’t wait for the paramedics. If you think you need stitches, get checked out at the hospital, but otherwise go home. Leave the rest to me and Ella.” 

“I can’t just walk away from a crime scene,” Chloe protested.

“Yeah,” Dan snorted, “because the rest of this operation has been so by-the-book. In fact, I think we might have burned the book for kindling a kidnapping or so ago.” He sobered and looked her in the eyes. “Chloe, trust me. I’ve got this. You go back home and rest. Go home to our daughter. We’ll figure this out tomorrow.” Chloe looked as if she wanted to argue, but was just too tired to care.  

“I’ll drive,” Lucifer offered, already moving towards the door.

“NO!” The word tore out of Chloe with a force that caused Dan to stare in shock. But Lucifer only turned back slowly and looked her over, the beginning of a frown building between his eyebrows. Chloe flushed and raised her chin defiantly. Dan didn’t know what Lucifer was looking for as he studied Chloe’s face, but whatever it was, he seemed to find it.  

“No,” Lucifer echoed slowly, adjusting the hang of his ruined suit. “I suppose I won’t.”  

Chloe fled then, without looking back. 

Dan didn’t know what was going on between them, but he suspected it had a lot to do with Lucifer killing Pierce. After all, Chloe _had_ almost married the guy. No matter how much of an asshole he had turned out to be it must have been a shock to see him dead. Lucifer stood where she had left him, back straight, head tall, fists clenched. Dan felt a rush of sympathy for the man. Sure, the guy was as sketchy as a three dollar bill, and Dan wouldn’t be surprised in the least to hear that he supplied the local hospitals with more than their fair share of business, but Dan was willing to wager one of Lucifer’s fancy cars that he had never killed a man before. No matter how tough Lucifer acted, Dan knew that he couldn’t possibly be alright.  

“Hey, man.” Dan walked over and put a hand on his … friend’s? … arm. “You did the right thing.” 

Lucifer’s muscles were taut as iron under Dan’s touch. “Yes, I know.”  

He didn’t sound convinced.


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is really only the first half of this chapter but I wanted to get something posted this week. There may be some minor changes to it by the time the second half is finished but they should be mostly cosmetic.

Maze reacted to the knock at Linda’s office door by shoving the doctor down behind her desk. Given what Maze had, rather reluctantly, explained to her about her falling out with Cain, Linda wasn’t inclined to argue. She only hoped that Maze didn’t accidentally kill one of her patients coming for an after-hours consultation. She heard the sound of the door opening and for a heart-wrenching second there was silence. But then - “Why, Mazikeen. If it isn’t the traitorous little cherry atop a shit sundae of a day. Here to finish what your partner started?” The voice was unmistakeable.

“Lucifer?” Linda peeked out from around her desk. “Oh, thank God,” she breathed, climbing to her feet.

Lucifer didn’t object to her word choice. He was too busy eyeing the demon who was currently holding the tip of one of Linda’s ball-point pens to his jugular. Maze stepped away and tossed the pen aside. “Don’t be such a baby. I couldn’t have killed you with it anyway.” She flopped back down onto the couch, more casually than Linda had seen her move since she had arrived, not showing her former employer any weakness.

Linda wanted to say, ' _Now isn’t really a good time for a session_ ,' but was brought up short by Lucifer’s appearance. It was almost as bad as Maze’s. “Lucifer, what happened to you?” she asked, moving closer to inspect the damage.

“Nothing that quisling cowering on your sofa couldn’t explain to you,” he growled, eyes never turning from Maze. His tone set off warning bells in Linda’s head. “I have to hand it to you, Maze. Even after all you’d done I never imagined that you would try to kill me. Did you think I wouldn’t recognize the dagger?” he crooned. “Or were you just so certain your little scheme would work that you didn’t even _consider_ the consequences of _MESSING_ WITH _ME_!” He roared the end of it and Linda thanked every angel who cared to listen that she happened to be standing between her two friends. She was certain that if she hadn’t been, Lucifer would have had Maze by the throat.

“Lucifer, calm do—” she started but he pushed her aside, advancing on the couch. He hadn’t hurt her, merely displaced her, like a human might nudge aside a kitten or a small dog.

Nevertheless, Maze sat up with a snarl. “Don’t you _touch_ her.”

“What?” Lucifer smiled nastily, “Still have one friend you aren’t ready to throw to the wolves? Aren’t _you_ the little hero?”

Maze got to her feet.

Linda sighed, internally. Maze was injured, exhausted, and running on pure adrenaline. She had just fought twelve people and run four miles out of the desire to protect Linda’s life. Of course she would overreact to any perceived threat against Linda now. Unfortunately, Lucifer’s tension was currently at a level she had mentally dubbed, “wall punching,” and Maze’s reaction would only make it harder for Linda to talk him down.

“Lucifer! Maze!” Linda looked from one to the other but they both ignored her. She was far too sensible to try and physically hold them back. One moment of anger and all the friendship in the world wouldn’t be enough to stop her oh-so-human body parts from snapping like twigs. _Just let them fight it out_ , the part of her interested in self-preservation whispered. _They won’t kill each other. Probably._ But if Linda were interested in doing the smart thing, she would never have chosen a thankless profession like therapy. So, like an idiot, she put herself back between them, facing down the Devil with nothing more than a calm voice and a stern look. _God, I need a career change_. “Lucifer, calm down. _Please_. You didn’t come to my office to fight with Maze. You came to talk. Let’s talk.”

“What is there to talk about?” Lucifer finally turned to her, anger and pain warring in his eyes. “Chloe almost _died_. He would have _killed_ her.”

Linda didn’t know who ‘he’ was (although she had a guess), but she recognized an opening when she heard one. “And is that Maze’s fault?”

“She _helped_ him,” Lucifer shouted. “He had one of her daggers! She’s been in bed with him for _months_!” He leered, “probably literally.” Linda felt a surge of empathy for the parents of teenagers. And members of bomb squads.

“Lucifer,” she kept her voice steady and soothing, “whatever happened today wasn’t Maze’s fault. She was kidnapped. She only just escaped.”

Lucifer rolled his eyes and Linda recognized the look on his face. He had the bit between his teeth now and logic was not going to get through to him. “Perhaps that’s what she told you,” he spat, “but the lying little _spider_ has spun more tall tales than—“

“I’m sorry,” Maze’s voice croaked.

Linda turned her head to look at her friend in surprise. Maze blinked as if she didn’t recognize the words that had just come out of her. But then she glanced at Linda and gave a little shrug, as if to say, _‘I guess it’s easier the second time.’_

Lucifer, on the other hand, rocked back as if he had been slapped. “What did you say?”

Maze looked him in the eyes. Even covered with sweat and blood and bruises, Linda thought she had never looked more powerful. “I’m sorry,” she repeated, stronger. “I messed up.”

Lucifer’s expression was strange, as if he had taken a sip of fine wine only to find it was grape juice. “You…you…” He sputtered, deflating. “You don’t get to just _apologize_.” His voice was plaintive.

But Maze, in true Maze fashion, didn’t show any mercy. “Yes, I do. I’m sorry, Lucifer.” She swallowed. “I’m sorry that I tricked you. I’m sorry that I lied to you.”

Lucifer looked slightly panicked, robbed of the self-righteous courage of anger, “But you hated me,” he protested. “I put you second. I refused to take you home.”

Maze nodded, biting her lip. “Yeah, you did. You hurt me, Lucifer.” She glanced at Linda again and smiled a little sadly. “But that doesn't mean hurting you back was the right answer.” She walked around a shellshocked Lucifer to reach the door. “Hey, Linda.”

Linda snapped out of her spectator’s daze. “Yes!”

“I’m going on patrol. I can still crash here, right?”

Linda smiled, “Of course you can.”

Maze nodded and jerked her chin at Lucifer. “Call me when you’re done with him.”

She closed the door behind her.


	4. Chapter 3.5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is technically the second half of chapter 3 but I am posting it as a new chapter so that people who subscribed get updates about it. I thought about deleting chapter 3 and re-uploading it, but then I would lose all of the lovely comments. So here we are. As always, thank you for taking the time to read!

Linda watched Maze go, her heart swelling with pride. And then she realized, “Oh, shit! I don’t think she has her phone. How am I supposed to call her?”

“She’s on patrol,” Lucifer replied ungraciously. “Just stick your head out the window and shout.”

But now that Linda’s brain was no longer occupied with trying to keep her two friends from tearing each other apart she was starting to remember why one of them had turned up on her doorstep in the first place. “Agh!” She made an inarticulate noise and turned to Lucifer in alarm. “We have to go after her! I’m an idiot. She nearly _died_ escaping from Cain’s men and then she left to go on patrol, _injured,_ because she thinks they might be coming after _me_. And I _let_ her.”

“They’re not coming after you,” Lucifer said shortly.

Linda studied her patient. He looked… ‘haggard’ was the first word that sprang to mind. He sank down onto the couch, elbows resting on his knees, as if his tirade earlier had cost him the last of his energy.

She wanted to help him, but Maze’s safety came first. “How can you be sure?” she asked.

His eyebrows drew down in annoyance and she braced herself for another round of caustic rhetoric. But maybe he saw the worry in her eyes, for the fire that he had been about to throw was extinguished with a huff. He answered reluctantly, but firmly, “I give you my word. Mazikeen will come to no harm tonight. Not from them, at least.”

Linda relaxed. “Thank you,” she told him. He looked away, as if unwilling to accept her gratitude.

No longer in a panic for the first time since Lucifer had arrived, Linda felt her own exhaustion creeping in. She had spent the evening dealing with demons and Devils and looking over her shoulder for the next threat against her life. And it wasn’t even the first time this _year_. When had terrified become her new normal?  _You could walk away right now_ , she told herself for the thousandth time.  _You could move to Toronto. Or Las Vegas._

She sat down in her chair. “What happened, Lucifer?”

He didn’t answer for a minute, studying his clasped hands intently. Just when she was about to try a different tactic, he said, abruptly, “Chloe and I kissed.”

“Oh!” She blinked. “That is … not what I expected you to say." And given his ragged appearance, it certainly wasn't the whole story, but... "Isn't that a good thing?”

He didn’t look up, as if it took all of his concentration just to push the next few words past his lips. “The way that she looked at me in that moment… I..." he paused, as if searching for the right words."I wanted to be the person that I saw reflected in her eyes,” he finished. “I thought for a moment, that maybe I could be.” His voice was matter-of-fact. “But I’m not.”

Linda bit her bottom lip. She knew that this was a big step for him, and she needed to help him make it in the right direction. “Lucifer, I know that you care very deeply for Chloe and it's only natural for you to value her opinion highly. But you can’t go into a relationship with the expectation that it will fail. That isn’t fair to you, and it isn’t fair to Chloe.”

“Then what am I supposed to _do_?” he asked, finally looking up at her.

“What do you _want_ to do?”

He hesitated, before admitting simply, “I don’t want to leave her.”

She felt her lips twist in sympathy. “Then don’t.”

***

Lucifer stood outside of Linda’s office building, trying to decide where the cab he had called should take him when it arrived. He longed to go home to Lux and pour himself a drink, but there was a hitman tied up in his bedroom and he wasn’t really in the mood for company. He had considered, in a moment of weakness, that Linda would let him stay the night if only he asked, but then there would be Maze to deal with and she was worse than a hitman on the best of days. Today not being one of those days, he reflected, she couldn’t even be counted on for a proper row. He fished out a cigarette, the familiar motion of lighting it soothing his nerves more than the nicotine ever could. The movement sent pain shooting through his body, but so did every move that he made. So he ignored it. His shredded wings burned in his nerves like they had once burned on the beach, but this fire wouldn’t stop. It was worse than cutting them off. He wondered briefly if he should be worried about the feathers he had left scattered around the scene of Pierce’s demise like divine easter eggs. But really, what were the officers of the LAPD going to do with them? Stuff a pillow?

He didn’t know why he had held the day’s events back from Doctor Linda after coming all this way to see her. Surely he didn’t fear her judgement. He had told her about Uriel, after all. Admittedly he wasn’t entirely certain she had absorbed the fact that he had killed his own brother given that she had been far too busy going catatonic after seeing his Devil’s face. And Lucifer had never really felt the need to bring it up again. Either way, it shouldn’t bother him to tell her that he was twice a murderer. And Chloe… well, she would come around, wouldn’t she. Linda had, eventually. And Linda’s initiation into the divine had been much less… well, _divine_ than Chloe’s had been. For the first time Lucifer was almost glad that his Devil’s face was missing. It had felt like a lie, to show her his wings, but now that the decision had been taken away from him, maybe it would be easier on her this way. _Right_ , he told himself unconvincingly. She hadn't seen the face of Evil Incarnate like Linda had. Instead she had only seen her partner sprout wings and kill her ex-fiancé. Much easier to handle. Well, Pierce had been a bastard anyway and he deserved it. It would be fine.

Right.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Luci doesn't know......


	5. Chapter 5

“How’s it coming?” Dan pulled Ella into a corner, away from prying ears, of which there were more than a few. The body had been taken away and the rest of the Sinnerman’s gang arrested, but a few of the responding officers had lingered to watch the forensics team work - a team which Dan couldn’t help noticing had almost doubled in size over the past half hour. Lieutenant Pierce had been highly respected and the members of the LAPD seemed determined to investigate his death thoroughly - even if that death appeared to be the result of nothing more than the danger every officer of the law faced daily in the course of duty. Unfortunately, Dan suspected that at least part of their heightened vigilance had a lot to do with precisely _who_ had been with the Lieutenant when he died. While weaving his tale for the first responders Dan had somehow managed to keep the absent Chloe and Lucifer out of it, but that meant placing himself - a cop who had once confessed to shooting another cop - at the scene instead. It certainly hadn’t helped that, unable to get a straight answer out of the two people who had actually been present and not knowing what forensics would turn up, he was forced to be almost laughably vague on the details of the supposed shootout/knife fight. His plan to buy time was starting to feel more like buying a length of rope to hang himself with. Dan swallowed down a burgeoning sense of panic and tried to concentrate on Ella.

When he had called her an hour ago, she had picked up on the first ring - 

 

_“Tell me they’re not dead,” she breathed._

_Yeah,” he answered, feeling some of the tension roll out of his own shoulders as he internalized it. “They’re fine.”_

_“Oh, thank God,” Ella gasped. “I mean, not that I thought they wouldn’t be, but when you’re sitting alone in an apartment with a creepy-ass hitman tied up in the other room your mind can go to some pret-ty dark places, you know?”_

_Dan’s lips twitched despite himself, “Yeah, I bet. Look, can you grab your gear and come down here? I need someone who knows this case to catalog the scene.” He phrased it carefully, aware of the officers milling around him._

_“Sure, I mean, it’s my job, but what should I do about Captain Homicide over there?”_

_Dan ran a hand across his face. “Just… leave him. I’ll send someone to pick him up.”_ As soon as I figure out what the hell I’m going to tell them _, he finished silently._

 

Dan was still working on that one. 

“ _Wow_ ,” Ella whispered to him now as she stripped off her gloves.“When you said that something _seriously weird_ went down here, you were _not_ joking.”

“I never said that,” Dan protested. 

“Didn’t you?” She cocked her head in puzzlement, but shrugged it off. “Well, _I’m_ saying it. This whole thing is messed _up.”_ She paused. _“_ And not just for the obvious reasons.”

“Do you have any idea what happened?” Dan asked. “Chloe and Lucifer didn’t have the chance to tell me much, earlier.” He had managed to catch Ella outside of the building when she arrived and bring her up to speed on what he knew of the day’s events. To her enormous credit, when he had told her about Pierce’s death and asked for her help with sabotaging/staying ahead of the investigation she had only swallowed once before announcing firmly that they were a team and no matter the stakes, she was all-in. This was the first chance he'd had to check in with her since.

“ _Well_ …” Ella grimaced and tilted her head from side to side in a non-committal motion as she contemplated his question.“I can’t tell you what all of this,” she opened her arms to take in the room, “ _is_ , but I can tell you what it _isn’t._ It definitely _isn’t_ what it looks like.” The arch of her eyebrow invited him to share her incredulity as she continued, “Because it _looks like_ a man-sized creature, _with_ _wings,”_ she emphasized, “burst in through that window, took dozens of bullets, _survived_ , and then flung the gunmen, _with said wings_ ,” she stressed again, “across the room like ping-pong balls.” Dan blinked.

Ella looked at him seriously for a beat, before adding, “Yeah, I’m working on Theory B.” 

“That’s probably a good idea,” Dan agreed, a bit too quickly. “Anyway,” he continued, “the good news is, if _you_ can’t figure out what happened, then no one else is likely to either. Just… let me know if anything changes, okay?” He made to turn away, but she stopped him with a hand.

“Not so fast,” she grinned. “I might not know what happened, but that doesn’t mean I don’t have _anything_ useful.” She pulled out a small evidence bag and waved it in front of his face. “What do you think this is?”

Dan took the bag and examined it. It contained a silver coin. The side facing him bore a stylized head and some kind of writing, barely visible through layers of oxidation. He shook his head and handed the bag back to Ella. “An old coin?” he guessed, unsure what point she was trying to make. 

Ella leaned in, eyes shining with excitement. “Not just _any_ old coin. A _really_ old coin. Dude, do you have any idea how much this is _worth_?” 

“Uh… a lot?” Dan hazarded. 

She rolled her eyes. Somehow, on Ella, the gesture didn’t look judgmental. “More than _a lot,”_ she gushed. “Like a _lot,_ a lot.” She frowned. “Or possibly a lot less then a lot. I’m not actually 100 percent sure. But _definitely_ something.” Dan pinched the bridge of his nose in impatience. Ella must have noticed because she steered herself back to the point. “If I’m right, then this coin is a Roman denarius. Depending on the exact age and rarity it could be worth hundreds, maybe thousands, of dollars.”

Dan frowned, “How do you know all of that?”

Ella shrugged, faux-casually, “What can I say? I’m a nerd of hidden depths.” She smiled and admitted, “although I suppose it’s _possible_ that I saw it on one of the many episodes of ‘Pawn Stars’ that my cousin forced me to watch in high school.” Dan snorted and Ella continued, “So we’ll have to wait to get it properly evaluated, but there is a whole _box_ of these over in that corner. And,” her voiced rose slightly with excitement, “if they turn out to be authentic then all of this…” she gestured expansively, taking in the wide variety of art surrounding them, “could be valuable too. Why else would Pierce have hidden all of it here?” She frowned a little, “I mean, technically, I suppose they _could_ be forgeries, or just some really odd taste in decorating, but _think_ about it,” her eyes practically glowed with renewed enthusiasm. “If all of these are real, historical artifacts, then people won’t care _who_ we killed to get them back.” She blinked and pitched her voice awkwardly, “Not that we _have_ killed anybody but… um… hypothetically speaking….” Dan pasted a smile on his face as a passing officer gave them side-eye.

“Can you please _try_ to be subtle,” he hissed. “You do understand what happens if we get caught, right?

“ _Sorry_ ,” she whispered back guiltily. “I got carried away. Although actually,” she leaned in closer, voice dropping conspiratorially, “now that you mention it, I know a guy who’s pretty good with antiques. Slip a couple of these bad boys,” she waved the coin at him again, “out of evidence and he could hook us up with a couple of one-way tickets to the Dominican Republic, if you know what I mean.”

“Ella,” Dan pressed his fist briefly against his forehead, “I can’t believe I have to say this, but we are _not_ fleeing the country.” 

“Okay, fine.” Ella held her hands up defensively. “Just saying. That is a LOT of piña coladas going to waste over there.”

***

Somehow they made it through the rest of the afternoon without incident. There was a moment when, glancing over at Ella, Dan could have sworn he saw her slip something into the pocket of her jeans, but he dismissed the idea immediately. He was starting to get paranoid.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> All of the characters are finally on stage!


	6. Chapter 6

_Chloe Decker, you fucking coward_. As soon as she was far enough away … as soon as she could _breathe…_ she started to berate herself. What had she been _thinking_ , running away from a crime scene? It went against everything that she stood for, every oath that she had sworn.

_To protect and serve._

She didn’t want to die. God knew she didn’t want to die and leave her baby girl alone. But she had decided a long time ago that if she took a bullet in the service of her oath, then her life - and death - would have meaning. And so it hadn’t mattered what danger she faced. It hadn’t mattered if her mouth went dry or her stomach clenched in fear. She was the one who stayed. She faced down the gun, or the knife, or the bomb, without backing down, because it was who she was. It was who she had _decided_ to be. But today she ran.

_Coward._

A horn blared loudly behind her and she almost drew her gun before she remembered that she was in her car, at a stop light. She was supposed to be driving. _Not good,_ the logical part of her brain pointed out, unnecessarily, as she found a place to pull over. Her hands shook. She felt sick. She felt… she didn’t know _what_ she felt, only that there was far too much of it. Her partner was the Devil. Her _partner_ , almost, in a whole other way as well. The phrase ‘in bed with the Devil’ sprang to mind. And suddenly she was back in that room again as the figure who, in her mind, was both Lucifer and _not_ Lucifer, stood and turned to face her, revealing the body on the floor and the dagger in its heart. _“Detective…?”_

Chloe had recognized the dagger. Her former roommate had a whole collection of them. It shouldn’t surprise her that Lucifer had one too. _Did he always carry it?_ she wondered. Had he been walking around armed in the middle of the police station the whole time she had known him? _Didn’t know him,_ she corrected _._ He had been so nonchalant afterwards, as if it were a _game_ that he had won. Did human life even matter to him? How many people had he killed with that knife? For how many _centuries_ had he been killing people with that knife?

 _That isn’t fair,_ part of her protested. _You don’t know that._

 _Why isn’t it fair?_ Her cop brain sneered back. _You’ve known since the beginning that he has violent tendencies. How many times has he disregarded the law or made light of someone’s death? How many times have you seen him grab a person by the throat or threaten to drop them from a balcony? Is it really so hard to imagine him following through? Little girl,_ the voice mocked, _thinking with your hormones, can’t see what is right in front of your face. How can such an_ idiot _call herself a Detective?_

 _Coward,_ the first voice returned. _Pierce was a monster. Lucifer saved your life. Again._ She remembered getting shot - the shock of impact, doubled as she hit the ground. She remembered gunfire, and a scream of rage and pain, and then she was on the roof. She remembered the rustling sound of giant wings and the sight of bloody feathers on the floor. Now that she _knew_ , it wasn’t hard to figure out what had happened. Y _our partner was hurt saving your life, and you ran away from him. Coward._ But Marcus Pierce had done no less than Lucifer, once. He had taken a bullet for her too, and almost died because of it. It didn’t mean anything. She couldn’t _let_ it mean anything, or she really _would_ be an idiot, repeating the same mistakes over and over.

Chloe rested her head on the steering wheel. Lucifer had never lied to her. She still believed that, in spite of everything. Maybe he even loved her. But now she _knew_ , better than ever, that there was so, _so_ much that he had kept from her. And she didn’t even want to _think_ about his Father or his family or any of the other existential consequences of her newfound knowledge. That was a rabbit hole too far for one afternoon. So she focused on Lucifer, the man, her partner, the Devil.

She would have to be an idiot to trust him. She would have to be a coward to run away from him. 

She closed her eyes. _Damn it, Lucifer. What am I supposed to do?_

It was Dan’s voice that answered. _Go home. Go home to our daughter._ She left her car by the side of the road, not caring that it would likely end up either ticketed or towed, and called an Uber.

***

It was Thursday, so Trixie would be at her friend Leticia’s house. Tisha’s mother, Ana, had offered to pick the girls up together from school a couple of days every week so that Trixie wouldn’t always have to hang out in the after-school program during the awkward couple of hours between the end of school and the time when Chloe got off work. It was a life saver, especially given the unpredictable hours she could find herself working in the middle of a case. Today it would give her time to shower and change before picking up her daughter. After all, the last thing that Trixie needed was to see her mother hurt _again_. Only Trixie wasn’t at Tisha’s house. When Chloe opened the front door she found her daughter sitting innocently at the counter, eating a sandwich.

“Hi, Mommy,” she greeted cheerfully around a mouthful of peanut butter.

“Hey, Monkey,” Chloe tried to sound casual even as she slid her injured hand into her pocket. “What,” she coughed and had to swallow. “What are you doing home?”

“Tisha’s brother is sick.” Trixie reported, brightly. “Her mom didn’t want me to catch it so she dropped me home, instead.”

Chloe was appalled, “without _calling_ me? I could have been working late tonight! You could have been by yourself for _hours._ That isn’t like Ana at all!” Suspicion dawned. “That _really_ isn’t like Ana. And _you,_  young lady." Trixie squirmed in her seat. "You know my cell phone number. Why didn’t you call me the instant you got home?”

Trixie wrinkled her nose. “… I forgot?” she tried.

Chloe raised an eyebrow. Trixie stared back in wide-eyed innocence. Chloe waited.

“Ok, _fine.”_ Trixie broke first. “I told Tisha’s mom that you already knew and I didn’t call you because then you would call Olga and I _hate_ her. She always makes me listen to her talk about her stupid garden,” she continued breathlessly, “and she won’t let me practice my knife fighting. She says it’s too ‘dangerous.’” Trixie put disdainful finger quotes around the word ‘dangerous.’

Chloe felt another headache coming on. Couldn’t this miniature rebellion have waited until _tomorrow_? “Honey,” she sat down on the stool next to Trixie’s. “I know you liked your old babysitter better, but Mommy can’t always predict when she’ll have to go to work and it is really hard to find someone who is always available to come stay with you. Olga has been really good to us. Can’t you give her another chance?”

Trixie pouted in reply. “I’m almost _ten_ , Mommy,” she said seriously, holding up the fingers on both hands to indicate _ten._ “I’m not a baby anymore. I don’t _need_ a babysitter.”

Chloe was about to give her five good reasons why she _did_ when Trixie’s eyes suddenly went wide and her bottom lip trembled slightly. Chloe followed her gaze. _Oh, shit. Oh shit oh shit oh shit._ If her brain hadn’t been so scattered she never would have made such a mistake.

“Mommy,” Trixie asked faintly, “Is that a bullet?”

She answered the only way that she could. “Yeah, honey, it is.” She kept her voice calm even as her brain screamed ‘ _idiot’_ at her again. “But that’s why Mommy wears a bullet proof vest. See?” She raised her shirt to show the protective armor underneath. “It doesn’t even hurt,” she lied.

Trixie’s eyes started to water. Chloe wondered in horror if her brave little girl was going to swallow the pain again, like she had the last time Chloe had been injured. But, to her relief, Trixie began to cry almost immediately, lurching across the space between the stools to hug her mother tightly. Chloe stroked her hair. “Shhh, it’s okay,” she murmured, her own eyes beginning to water. “I’m sorry. It’s okay. I’m okay.” She repeated the words over and over, rocking her baby in her arms. “It’s okay.”

“Can’t you get another job?” Trixie asked, sniffling, as she calmed down. “I’ll be good. I’ll listen to Olga,” she mumbled into her mother’s shoulder. “I don’t want you to get hurt anymore," she added. "I’m scared.”

Chloe’s heart broke. “I know, baby. I know, and I’m so sorry.” When her tears fell, they dripped into her daughter’s hair. “I never want you to have to be scared.”

“Then stop getting hurt,” Trixie told her.

“Okay, Monkey,” Chloe ran her hand in soothing circles around her daughter’s back. “Okay.”

What had her father thought, she wondered, during similar conversations with a young Chloe all those years ago? Had he ever guessed that one day his little girl would be out there facing the same dangers that he had? _Would he have been proud?_  She thought of Trixie in her place, with a bullet embedded over _her_ heart. She thought of her dad, killed in the line of duty. _Would he have been horrified?_ Probably both, she decided. Chloe held her baby girl in her arms, thoughts of angels and Devils temporarily erased from her mind. Trixie was right about one thing, she realized. She _was_ almost ten, and growing up fast. What, Chloe wondered, would her little girl become as she grew older? Probably something that would make her mother both proud and horrified. Chloe hugged her daughter fiercely and prayed that, whatever kind of adult Trixie grew into, Chloe would be around to see it happen.


	7. Chapter 7

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Two chapters!! Because this one is short. :)

“I’m dreaming,” Dan told Charlotte Richards. She was sitting on the bed of his old pickup truck, her high heeled feet dangling jauntily over the edge. It had been his parents’ truck, and the first car he ever drove. They had given it to him on the day he graduated high school and he had driven it for six more years before the engine finally gave out. He hopped up to join Charlotte, appreciating the familiar groan of old metal as the truck took his weight. “I’m dreaming,” he repeated. “And you’re dead.”

Charlotte opened one hand in a half shrug. “Well, yes,” she smiled sadly at him. “Correct on both counts, I’m afraid.” She cracked open a can of beer, warm from sitting out in the sun, and handed it to him. She opened another for herself and took a cautious sip before spitting it back into the can in disgust. “Ugh. I can’t believe this is what passes for alcohol inside your head.”

Dan took a sip of his own. It was terrible. “Well, I can’t believe a figment of my imagination is giving me grief over my liquor selection,” he commented. “If you wanted wine, you should have haunted Lucifer.”

Charlotte frowned. “I thought… I _hoped_ you would be happy to see me.”

Dan took another sip of beer. He couldn’t look at her. “I see you all the time,” he admitted. “I see you when I’m at work. I see you when I’m at home. I see you when I’m eating fucking _waffles,”_ he spelled out, bitterly. “I don’t need to see you when I sleep.“

She put a hand on his shoulder, and it felt so real he could have cried. “Then I’m sorry, Daniel, for causing you more pain, but I am real and I need to talk to you. And, as this will be my only opportunity,” she put her other hand on his other shoulder and turned him gently to face her, “I need you to listen.”

“Right,” Dan laughed, sarcastically, shaking himself loose. “You’re really Charlotte Richards and you missed me so much you flew down from Heaven just to have a chat.”

She gave him a half smile. “Actually, Amenadiel did most of the flying. He had an errand to run and I sort of hitched a ride.”

Daniel snorted. “Right. He’s Lucifer’s brother, so I guess that makes him an angel. Why not?” He took another swig of beer.

“I didn’t come here because I missed you,” she said, ignoring him. Dan knew she wasn’t real, but hearing it still stung a little. “I came because we are a lot alike,” she continued, “and I know what _I_ would have done if some idiot had gone and killed _you_.”

Dan had to ask, “What would you have done?”

Her eyes narrowed and she smiled that terrifyingly sexy smile that had always made Dan wonder if she was about to kiss him or kill him. “I would have ripped them limb from limb and scattered their bones across the Mojave desert.”

He could have kissed her. But she was dead. He swallowed, “I couldn’t take revenge even if I wanted to. Pierce is dead.”

“I know.”

“It isn’t fair.”

She smiled at him fondly and cupped his face in one palm. “Oh, Daniel. If life and death were fair,” she told him, “I never would have met you.”

Dan heard a rustling sound, like a giant pair of wings and Charlotte frowned. “We’re almost out of time.” She held his gaze, her eyes intense. “Listen to me, Daniel Espinoza, and _hear_ me. Marcus Pierce may be dead, but all of your pain and anger is not and someday it will want _out._ When it does, you have to control it. Hell is _real_ ,” she snarled, “and I will _not_ have you go there because of _me_.”

He shook his head, mouth opening in protest, but she shushed him with a finger. “Just remember, when that time comes, that you have a daughter who loves you and who you can see whenever you want.” Her voice grew thick and he remembered her own strained relationship with her family. “You have friends who care for you,” she continued. “You have so much love in your life, Daniel.” She dropped her finger. “Take care of it.”

Charlotte hopped lightly down from the back of the truck and Dan clambered quickly after her, as unwilling to see her leave as he had been unwilling to see her at all. She made as if to walk away, but then turned back around to face him. “I didn’t come here because I wanted to see you,” she told him.

“I know,” Dan looked down. “You said.”

She stepped forward and lifted his chin with her hand. “It wasn’t the reason I came,” she repeated, and she dropped her forehead down to meet his. Her eyes were pools to drown in. “But I _did_ want to see you,” she whispered. Their noses nuzzled briefly and then Dan’s lips moved up to meet hers, eating in flesh that was only solid in dreams. He could still smell her perfume, cinnamon and vanilla, hanging in the air as he awoke, alone in his own bed.


	8. Chapter 8

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Fun fact - I'm not dead. Some things came up, but hopefully I can get back into this more regularly again.

When Chloe awoke the next morning she felt … normal. She lay in bed for a while, waiting for the maelstrom of emotions from the night before to sweep her up again, but it never came. _I almost died yesterday,_ she reminded herself, testing the waters. _But you didn’t,_ her brain reassured her. She got up, showered, and laid out a simple breakfast for herself and for Trixie. They talked about Trixie’s upcoming science test, which naturally led to a debate about whether or not birds could fart. “I bet when a bird gets really tired,” Trixie hypothesized gleefully, “and they don’t want to fly anymore, they go BLRRT,” she made a rude noise with her lips and tongue, “and then they just glide on the fart power!” Chloe agreed that it was an interesting idea but noted that Trixie had better finish her cereal or they would both be late. She rode with Trixie in a cab to her school and then directed the driver to the little stretch of road where her car was, miraculously, still waiting for her.

As she drove, the previous day’s events seemed distant and manageable. She ran through a mental checklist of what she needed to accomplish when she arrived at the station. First she would find Dan, learn how he had handled the aftermath of yesterday’s events and convince him that they needed to bring their secret investigation out into the open before it blew up in their faces. Then she would find Lucifer and ask him what exactly had happened after Marcus Pierce had pointed a gun at her and pulled the trigger. The shock of getting shot must have messed with her memory and her head had filled in the blanks in the craziest way possible. Lucifer’s Devil shtick was finally rubbing off on her.

When she arrived it wasn’t Dan but Ella that she found first. She touched the other woman’s arm as she breezed past with a stack of boxes. “Ella, hey.” The forensics tech spun around but kept moving backwards, forcing Chloe to follow.

“Hey, Chloe!” She practically shouted. “Glad you’re feeling better! Can’t talk right now but I’ll catch you when I can!” With that uncharacteristically short greeting, Ella scuttled away.

Chloe was bemused. “Well, that was weird,” she told the air.

“Don’t take it personally,” a passing officer told her. “Some things went missing from evidence. They’re turning out all of the boxes in case one of them got mislabeled.”

Chloe felt an odd sense of dread. “What went missing?” she asked.

The woman shrugged. “A bunch of feathers.”

“Feathers,” Chloe repeated, dumbly.

The officer nodded, understandingly. “Yeah, feathers. I doubt they would actually give us any useful information, but they’re from the Lieutenant’s case. No one wants to be accused of negligence on that one.” The officer raised her brows in a _What can you do?_ sort of way before moving on.

Chloe found her way to her desk in a daze and sat down with a thunk. _Feathers. Big white glossy glowing_ _feathers._ It was all real. Everything that she remembered from the day before had really happened. Lucifer was really the Devil, just as he had been telling her all along. What else had he told her that she had missed? She had a sudden desperate desire to find a time machine and tell a slightly younger Chloe to write down all of the apparent nonsense that her partner would spout over the next couple of years so that present-day Chloe could read it. All that she could remember was his insistence that Marcus Pierce was immortal, and something about a curse. But Pierce was dead, so how could that be true? _Did Lucifer lie?_ But that didn’t make sense either. Why tell the truth about his identity only to lie about something equally unbelievable? Chloe furrowed her brows, subconsciously reaching up to play with her necklace as she tried to think. But her mind scattered like a school of startled fish as she realized precisely which charm she had hanging around her neck. It was the bullet necklace Lucifer had given her on her birthday. She must have put it on without thinking. She moved as if to take it off, but found herself merely tucking it discretely beneath her blouse instead. Somehow, despite everything, she felt braver with it on.

Further thought was interrupted by a cup of coffee, slid gently in front of her by a familiar, manicured hand.

“Espresso for your thoughts,” Lucifer offered.

Chloe looked up sharply, bracing for the rush of fear, but it never came. It was just Lucifer, her partner, looking… actually, looking almost as anxious as Chloe felt. He licked his lips as she failed to respond and carried on talking. “Not your usual, I know, but I thought perhaps you could use a little extra kick on this particular morning.” He favored her with an attempt at his usual carefree grin, and sat himself down familiarly on the edge of her desk. There, he paused. His eyes, dark tension in them belying the smile, slowly searched her face, asking a question that she didn’t yet know the answer to. After a couple of seconds he gave a little huff of laughter and tumbled off again. “What am I thinking?” He started backing away, “I’ve forgotten the biscotti! You can’t enjoy espresso properly without a good biscotti. How does almond and honey sound? I’ll go and pick some up from the market around the corner.” He spoke without pausing for breath as he retreated, smile fixed in place. “Not exactly Italy, but baking knows no borders, or so the cashier at Vons tells me. Lovely fellow. Shame about the overbite.” He was almost at the stairs now, riding on a wave of nonsense towards the exit. Before she could think about what she was doing, Chloe was on her feet and grabbing him by the elbow.

“Lucifer, wait,” she gasped. He froze. “We need to talk,” she told him.

With him there in front of her, warm and real, and terrified, Chloe felt her doubt slipping away like sand in the ocean. Yes, her world had been tilted on its axis. Yes, there were undoubtedly more than a fewsecrets that Lucifer had kept from her, but, considering how much he had told her that she hadn’t believed, she owed him the opportunity to tell her and have her _listen_. She didn’t know where this new truth would leave them, but she was certain of two things. #1, Lucifer had never lied to her.And #2, he would never purposefully hurt her. Annoy the hell out of her, certainly. Run off and marry a stripper, unfortunately yes. Confuse and dismay her, constantly. But really hurt her? Never.

 _You’re certain of that? Just like you were certain that Marcus Pierce wouldn’t shoot you?_ A familiar voice in Chloe’s head called out to her again, mockingly, and suddenly she realized where all of the fear from the day before had really come from.

_Marcus Pierce. It was always Marcus Pierce._

She had believed in him and he had betrayed her. And then, just when she was feeling the most vulnerable, the most willing to doubt her own judgement, she had been forced to confront yet another example of her inability to see what was right in front of her eyes. It had never really been about Lucifer. The person that she couldn’t trust was herself.

Lucifer was still standing there, her hand on his arm. The smile was gone now. All that remained was the tension. Chloe knew she had to say something soon but found that she didn’t know how to begin. “ _You’re the Devil,_ ” still sounded absurd in her own mind. She would die of embarrassment before she let it pass her lips. She looked around nervously, but no one was nearby. _How is this so hard to say_ , she wondered. _Lucifer practically shouts it from the rooftops all the time._

“Lucifer,” she began, “about yesterday. About… what happened. I need to talk to you.” He glanced down at his arm and she dropped it. He didn’t run away. Strangely relieved, she continued. “I don’t really know how to say this,” she told him, “so just… listen, please.” Her eyes found his and held them, willing her partner to understand. “Before last night, I was an _atheist_. Agnostic at best.” Lucifer didn’t take her opening. His face was frustratingly blank. _Come on, Lucifer,_ she pleaded mentally. _Give me something to work with._ But he didn’t _,_ so she continued. “I was scared, Lucifer,” she admitted. _“_ Of you at first,” he flinched at that, “of the _enormity_ of it all, but mostly of myself, for not being able to see the truth.” She felt an odd sense of relief as she confessed her fears. “You have to understand,” she told him, “what happened with Pierce was really _hard_ for me. I’m a _Detective_. My whole _job_ is figuring out who the bad guys are and bringing them to justice. Do you know what… what a complete _idiot_ I feel like right now? Someone I worked with, someone I _trusted,”_ her throat clenched in shame, _“_ someone that I thought that I was in _love_ with turned out to be —”

“A killer?” Lucifer offered.

Chloe closed her eyes briefly as another wave of self-recrimination pounded through her. She should have _known_. She should have _seen_. She should have… But she had decided to face this. “Yes,” she admitted. 

Lucifer’s eyes were impossible to read. “A monster, even,” he continued.

It was the right word for Marcus Pierce. “Yes,” she agreed. She forced herself to look Lucifer in the eyes once more. “A monster.”

Lucifer’s face grew dark. His whole body trembled slightly in a way that Chloe recognized as suppressed rage. _Why?_ was all that she had time to wonder before Dan hurtled into them.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Fun fact - birds don't fart.


	9. Chapter 9

Why am I here? _Lucifer wondered._

 _He should never have been there. He should have realized that morning, as he sat outside the station in a borrowed car, counting down the last few minutes of the graveyard shift, that this was a terrible idea. He should have known that the desperate sense of urgency that left him, unwilling to spare the time to drop back home to change, dressed in an off-the-rack atrocity of a suit from the hotel store, would lead him into folly. He should have driven away right then, before he could see Chloe’s car pull into the lot and feel his heart skip a beat as he realized that he had not really expected her to come._ Hope is a wonderful thing.

 _When he had wandered in circles afterwards, like a fool, somehow unable to walk through a door that he entered every day, he should have taken his own reticence as a sign and turned away. But most of all, when he finally found himself, caffeinated olive branch in hand, staring down from the top of the stairs at the denizens of the basement floor, he should never, ever, have stood there frozen, watching as worry pursed Chloe Decker’s lips and drew her eyebrows down at a precipitous angle. If only he had left then, he would never have seen a glint of silver catch the light from between her fingers, would never have recognized the charm that she had once worn so often, that she had stopped wearing during those long months that she had dated Pierce, and which was now hanging around her neck again._ Hope is a terrible thing _._

 _He regretted approaching her the moment that she looked up, echoes of her frantic “NO!” from the day before still lingering in her eyes. He should have given her more time. Days. Weeks. A month if she needed it. Linda had needed it. Why had he thought that he could just walk in and act as if nothing were wrong? That she would let him get away with it?_ Because she always had before _, a voice reminded him. But it was too late to turn back._  

_He knew that it was over before she even started speaking. Anticipation was a fiery serpent, burning in his gut. Better to get it over with._

_“A killer.” He said the words for her._

_She could barely look at him. “Yes.”_

_He was an actor running through a familiar script. With a sense of inevitability, he prompted the next line. “A monster, even.”_

_His heart was dry tinder waiting for a match._

_She gave it to him.“Yes. A monster.”_  

_Lucifer welcomed the anger as it roared to life inside of him. He knew from experience that the only way to avoid being burned by a fire, was for he himself  to be the flame._

***

“Guys - ” Chloe heard Dan call out, his every movement telegraphing urgency as he raced across the room. In his haste he skidded on the smooth floor, about to slide straight into them. Chloe watched as Lucifer casually reached out a hand. It caught Dan squarely in the chest, stopping the other man’s momentum in an instant. “Not now, Daniel,” he admonished as Dan coughed and sputtered, winded by the impact. Lucifer’s eyes didn’t leave Chloe’s for a second. “ _Detective Decker_ and I are having a heart to heart.” Her full title slammed down like a wall between them.

 _Why?_ Chloe wondered again, helplessly. She was missing something. Something important. She felt caught in an earthquake, ground she had thought secure shifting out from underneath her. But that was wrong. The earthquake had happened yesterday. This was only the aftershock. The thought both irritated and unnerved her.

“Jesus, man - “ Dan gasped, face red with indignation, but Lucifer spoke over him.

“I should congratulate you, _Detective Decker._ ” One side of his mouth twisted down into a grimace. “You’ve finally unmasked your villain. Found the serpent in your garden.” His voice had all of the rough control of a volcano just before it blew. “So, what happens now? You tackle me to the ground while Daniel puts his cuffs on me?” He made a noise that might have been a laugh if it hadn’t sounded so bitter. “Or are you planning on simply shooting me where I stand?”

 _What?_ Chloe replayed the last few minutes in her head. _How did we get here?_ “No one is going to shoot you, Lucifer.”

“ _I_ might,” Dan growled, unhelpfully. “Whatever is going on with you two, this is not the time, and it is _really_ not the place.” He glanced around and Chloe realized that Lucifer’s outburst had drawn more than a few not-stares from nearby desks and doorways.

“Why not?” Lucifer gestured expansively around the room. “Why not let everyone listen?” He gasped in mock realization, “Don’t tell me Daniel Espinoza, least trusted officer in the LAPD, has something to _hide_ from his coworkers!” He bared his teeth. “What a shocker _that_ would be.”

Dan’s face turned purple. “This isn’t a game, man,” he hissed. He dropped his voice to the point that Chloe could barely hear him and any eavesdroppers certainly wouldn't be able to. ”This thing with Pierce is a frickin’ house of cards and I’m playing blindfolded. The whole precinct is on edge, evidence is going missing - Oh yeah, and I almost forgot,” he smiled humorlessly, “according to Ella, the scene reads like something out of Harry Potter, and I’m the one who is supposed to explain it all away.” His face grew grim. “I don’t know what is going on with you right now and, frankly, I don’t care. You are going to follow me into that interrogation room and tell me exactly what happened yesterday, and then the three of us are going to sit down and figure out a plan because, guess what? This isn’t about you. This is about _all_ of us. So can you please, for once in your _goddamned_ _life_ , get your head out of your ass and take something seriously?”

 _God-damned._ Chloe was struck by how such an ordinary phrase suddenly felt so literal. Lucifer’s eyes agreed with her, narrowing sharply at the word _Damned._ Or, knowing Lucifer, the word _God._

She wondered what form the explosion would take, but, to her horror, Lucifer started to laugh, unrestrained and vaguely hysterical. Her stomach turned knots at the sound. “Dan,” she started, about to tell him to back off, but it was too late.

“I don’t see anything funny,” Dan snarled.

“Don’t you?” Lucifer turned to Chloe. “ _Detective Decker_ does.”

Chloe didn’t.

Lucifer continued as if she had agreed with him. “Detective Decker, Detective Espinoza would like to know what happened the other day and I am quite certain that a man of his moral standing,” he smirked, “would settle for nothing less than the Truth, the Whole Truth and Nothing But the Truth.” The expression on Lucifer’s face was a smile in the same way that Arsenic was a harmless sleep aid. “Do you want to tell the story, or shall I?” Chloe’s heart nearly stopped. With everything else going on, she had actually forgotten something so basic. She imagined herself in front of a board of inquiry trying to explain that her partner was the Devil and yes, he had killed the Lieutenant but it was really in self-defense because her commander who was also her ex-boyfriend had actually been a secret mob boss and possibly immortal despite being dead now and she had only survived the whole thing in the first place because Lucifer had flown her away with his fluffy angel wings.

Lucifer looked smug, like he had read her mind. “The thing about the Truth, _Detective Decker_ ,” he whispered, “is that everyone thinks they want to know it.” His ‘smile’ faded. “Until they do.” He held her gaze and, as he did, a great pair of white wings shone like two stars behind him. It was only for a second — maybe less — and then they were gone.

Chloe couldn’t help it, she took a step back. _I thought I was past this,_ she scolded herself. _I thought I had come to terms with this._ But it was too late.

Lucifer nodded as if she had confirmed something for him. “Daniel is wrong,” he said quietly. “This _is_ a game, Detective. A great big, cosmic game.” He swallowed. “Well, I’m done playing."


	10. Chapter 10

Mazikeen Smith considered the building before her. Generally speaking, there were three ways to enter enemy territory. No one of these methods was essentially better or worse than the others. What made a good general, or a good bounty hunter, was the ability to choose the right tool for the right situation. The first method was full on assault. The main goal of this strategy was to overwhelm the opponent with a swift and decisive show of force. Typically, this would be used against a weaker opponent to shorten the length of the fight and reduce casualties on the attacking side, however Maze often employed this strategy as a bluff, surprising a stronger enemy into surrendering before they realized they held the advantage. The second tactic was stealth. This, Maze would admit, was her favorite, if only for the look on  ~~ Lucifer’s ~~  the other party’s faces as she materialized out of the darkness. The third was deception. A flag of truce “accidentally” raised over the battlefield (or a phone “accidentally” dropped in the toilet when it was her turn to do dishes but she would really rather be doing the young clerk at Vons with the overbite and the fetish for red pepper hummus) could quickly turn the tide of a battle. It goes without saying that Mazikeen was quite skilled in the successful application of all three methods and what she had learned through years of hard won experience was a simple truth. No matter which method they employed, what truly separated the victor from the defeated was one factor - confidence. With that in mind, Maze squared her shoulders, raised her chin high, and entered through the front door.

***

Mazikeen approached the front desk of Trixie’s school. It was manned by a thickset woman with a broad jaw, sharp eyes, and remarkable typing speed. Maze jerked her chin up in brief acknowledgement of the human’s presence before getting to the point. “Where can I find Trixie Decker?”

The woman looked up from the computer. Her eyes were two bright stones in an otherwise featureless face. “Are you family?” she asked.

“I’m her mother,” Maze lied.

The receptionist raised an eyebrow. “I happen to know Officer Decker.”

“Her other mother,” Maze amended without missing a beat. She leaned in close to the human’s face for emphasis, letting the full force of her presence flood over her unsuspecting victim. “And it’s  _Detective_  Decker,” she growled, menacingly.  The human seemed remarkably unfazed at having a battle-hardened demon warrior literally breathing down her neck.  

“Name?” the woman asked, in the same bored tone. Maze withdrew slowly, reluctantly impressed. It seemed the spawn was in good hands. She looked at the human’s label.  _Doris_ , it read. Maze made a note of it.

“Mazikeen Smith,” she replied, proudly.

Doris bent back to the computer. The woman’s tongue made clucking noises while the fingers typed. “Let’s see…” the receptionist muttered. As she waited, Maze ran through the ten easiest ways to incapacitate the human, steal the computer, find Trixie, and split before the first responders arrived. She was in the middle of considering whether the pot of pens or the stapler would be more aerodynamic when Doris’s nostrils flared in obvious disappointment. “Ah,” she intoned. “You are on the list of approved guardians.” She reached for the phone. “I’ll have someone call her down. You can wait in the hallway.”

Maze’s stomach did something odd. She hadn’t expected it to be that easy. “Yeah,” she replied. “Sure.” 

Doris returned to work.

***

“This is what a visiting room in prison is like,” Trixie informed Maze. It had been too awkward sitting next to each other on the empty benches outside the front office, so they had wandered to the empty cafeteria where they now sat across from each other at one of the long tables, like two men in a bar flexing their muscles in preparation for a drunken round of arm wrestling.

Maze considered Trixie’s words. “You been to prison?” she asked, conversationally.

The small human shook her head. “This is what it looks like on TV, though,” she clarified.

Maze had never visited her bounties in prison, so she deferred to the small human’s expertise.

Trixie sipped loudly on the juice box Maze had liberated from the school kitchen, draining the last drop of apple-flavored sugar. “Well,” the girl proclaimed, “I’ve run out of good reasons to stay here, so you better talk fast. I have a science test third period.”

Maze frowned. Her bribe had run out much quicker than she had anticipated and she still hadn’t fulfilled her mission. It had seemed so straightforward back in Linda’s office. The night before she had humored Linda… no, that wasn’t it. She had  _magnanimously_  admitted…. No…. FINE. She had ‘apologized’ to her ‘friend’ and that had made her life ‘better.’ She had even apologized to  _Lucifer_ , and he was a dick. So, why was it so hard to do it a third time? The answer hit her like a well-timed flash grenade. She had been pretty high on pain when she apologized to Linda, and it had been laughably easy to apologize to Lucifer because he really  _was_  a dick and she honestly didn’t give a fuck what he felt about her one way or another, which meant… she actually  _cared_  what the little human thought about her. Oh, how the mighty have fallen. Also, eew.

Trixie stood up with a sigh, interrupting the demon’s train of thought. “I think we’re done here,” the child announced.

“Wait!” the word tore out of her. Trixie turned back. “I’m sorry,” Mazikeen said, for the third time in two days.

Trixie Decker bit her lip. “I don’t care,” she told Maze, and turned to leave.

“Hey!” Maze stood up and ran after her. “I said, ‘I’m sorry!’” She grabbed the girl’s arm. “That’s supposed to count for something!” 

There was water in Trixie’s eyes as she spun back fiercely. “NO!” She shouted back. “It  _doesn’t_!” She swung a punch at Maze who caught it effortlessly. “I thought you were my  _friend_!” She ripped her arm out of Maze’s grasp and swung again. Maze caught it. “I thought you liked me!” The water overflowed and ran down her cheeks. It distracted Maze enough that the third punch hit home. Trixie left it there, pressed into Maze’s stomach. Her whole face was red and wet with anger. “You’re a bully,” Trixie told her. “And you’re mean, and I hate you.”

Maze took the tiny fist gently in her hands, rubbing it between her fingers. She was too big, so she knelt down to look Trixie in the eyes. “I’m sorry,” she repeated. The water kept flowing, only now it was on her face too.  _Stupid human emotions._  So she did the only thing a good general could do in the face of insurmountable odds. “I surrender,” she said.

***

A few minutes later, the two women sat across from each other again at the plastic lunch table, working out the terms of Mazikeen’s surrender. “…. And you tell me a story before bed,” Trixie finished, firmly.

Maze frowned, “Nuh-uh. No way. I am  _not_  taking responsibility for story time. Wouldn’t you rather have a piece of chocolate cake?” she bargained.

Trixie crossed her arms. “I’m growing out of chocolate,” the child shot back coolly.

_Damn_ , Maze cursed, silently. The kid was a tough negotiator. “ _Fine_ ,” she growled. “Story time for a week and I do your chores for  _two_  weeks, plus self-defense lessons Tuesdays and Thursdays.”

“And?” Trixie prompted.

Maze rolled her eyes. “ _And_  I refer to you as ‘Her Awesome Highness, the President of Mars’ for the rest of the day.”

“Pick me up after school,” the President of Mars ordered. “I’ll give Olga the day off.” With that, the child tossed her juice box neatly in the garbage and stood to leave.

“Wait a second,” Maze called the little human back. “Let me see your bag.” Rummaging through Trixie’s backpack, Maze came up with a Ninja Turtle notebook and a number 2 pencil. Ripping a page from the notebook, she scribbled down a number. “I almost forgot something,” she grinned.

***

Doris was still engrossed in whatever was on the computer when Maze slammed a piece of notebook paper down on the desk. “You don’t scare easily, Doris,” Maze told the human. “I like that. Call me sometime.”

Doris lifted a brow. “I thought you were married.”

Maze winked, “It’s an open relationship.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Maze has a LOT of apologizing to do. Can her character growth handle it?


	11. Chapter 11

“Hey, Decker! If your pet crackpot still isn’t house trained, do us a favor and leave him in the car next time, okay? Some of us are trying to get work done around here.” 

Chloe ignored the gibe. Hennessy didn’t need an excuse to be an ass, it was his default setting. Then again, that was precisely the problem. ‘ _I’m done playing.’_ After Lucifer said those words and stalked out, Chloe’s colleagues reactions had included every flavor of amusement and annoyance. What they hadn’t included was fear. Or awe. Or confusion. There were no whispered murmurs of ‘ _Did you see that?’_ or _‘Were those wings?’_  

Chloe entered the ladies' room and turned on the faucet. _Wake up, Decker,_ she chided as she splashed cool water on her face. Her right palm stung a little where she had cut herself, but she didn’t mind it. It hadn’t been deep enough to bother re-bandaging that morning. Besides, the shadow of pain grounded her as much as the cold from the water, body drowning out mind, if only for the time it took to dry her face. She looked at her reflection in the mirror. “It really happened,” she told herself. “You’re not crazy.” Her reflection stared back, unimpressed. Chloe sighed. “And talking to yourself might not be the best way to prove it.”  

She thought back to her argument with Lucifer - if one could call it an argument when one side did all of the arguing. She had tried. Her partner had punched a hole in the boat of reality, leaving her to drown, and she had done her level best to be okay with that _._ She remembered the disdain in Lucifer’s eyes as he saw her self doubt, and her fear, and then used them to casually rip her apart. She had seen him do it before - to criminals, and scumbags, mostly. But also to people who didn’t deserve to be humiliated. People who simply happened to piss him off. _I just never thought he would do it to me._  

Chloe felt her fingers dig into the edge of the sink in self-disgust. “If I spend one more moment wallowing in self-pity,” she told the Chloe in the mirror, “slap me.” She took a deep breath and unclenched her hands. “You are a working professional,” she told herself sternly. “So stop hiding in the bathroom and go do your damn job.”

***

“Are you ready?” Dan asked Chloe as he opened the door to the interrogation room. After Lucifer’s Devil-class tantrum had put them in an unwelcome spotlight, they had agreed to regroup in an hour. Now, that hour had passed, and they squeezed together into the narrow room on the hidden side of the one-way glass.

_No,_ she thought, as Dan locked the door behind them. “Yes,” she said. 

Dan nodded, glancing nervously to the door and then back. “Great. Okay.” He pulled out a chair for himself and gestured her into another. She sat. Dan folded his hands in in his lap. “Chloe, what -” he started to ask, but his ringtone cut him off. “Damn it!” he cursed. “Just a second.” His fingers fumbled over the touchscreen. “Andersen, what - No! I told, you I’ll have it back to you in …look, just… let me fi-….. I’ll call you back!” He hung up.“Sorry,” he told Chloe. The phone rang again. Dan pressed the Decline button. “Okay.” He sounded a little out of breath. “Right. Sorry about that,“ he repeated. 

“Dan,” Chloe asked carefully, “are you okay?”

He waved a dismissive hand. “I’m fine, Chloe. Let’s do this. What happened yesterday?”

Chloe nodded. “Right.” Her stomach sank as she told him as much as she could without sounding insane. It wasn’t much.

“That’s all you remember?” Dan asked, disappointment poorly concealed on his face. 

“That’s all,” Chloe lied. _I hate this,_ she thought.

“Dammit…” he muttered. “I just hoped there would be _something_ that could…” he ran his hand through his hair.   

“I’m sorry, Dan,” Chloe apologized. 

_“_ No, it’s fine.” Dan stood up and started pacing. “We just need a plan. Ella thinks she has a lead, but it's a long shot. Still, while she follows it, you and I can …. God _DAMMIT,_ ” he swore as his phone rang again. He switched it to silent with a vicious flick, and slammed it back to the table.

“Dan -” Chloe started.

“I’m _fine!”_ Dan cut her off angrily.

She raised an eyebrow. He winced. “Yeah, I just heard how that sounded.” He sat back down heavily. “I’m sorry. I just… its just…” he floundered, hands kneading the air in frustration. “I don’t know what to do,” he admitted. “I came up with this plan to buy us some time, but it hasn’t even been 24 hours and its already spinning out of my control.” He clenched and unclenched his jaw, visibly working to reassert a measure of calm. “You were right, Chloe,” he said finally. “We never should have lied about this. I’ve put all of our jobs on the line for some stupid ego trip, thinking I could _fix_ it," he spat.

Chloe looked at him - really _looked_ at him for the first time that day. “Dan,” she asked slowly, “how much sleep have you been getting?”

For a moment it looked like he was going to deny it, but, perhaps seeing the concern on Chloe’s face, he gave in. “Is it that obvious?” he asked with a sigh. _It would have been,_ Chloe thought, ashamed, _if I had been paying attention._ “It’s no big deal, really,” Dan shrugged it off. “I’m taking care of it.”

“Wait, ‘ _taking care of it?’”_ Chloe repeated back to him, “How long has this been going on?” Then, she realized. _Of course._ “Not since -” she couldn’t finish.

“Yeah.” He finished for her. “Since Charlotte died.” 

She reached for his hand. “I’m sorry,” she said. 

“Thanks,” he said tightly. For a moment it looked as though he would end the conversation there, but then he whispered, “I feel like I should have _done_ something.”

“There was nothing you could have done,” she told him.

“I know,” he said too quickly. “I _know_ that.” He swallowed. “Its just that I keep having dreams.” Now that he had started talking about it, he couldn’t seem to stop. “They’re not nightmares or anything,” he told her, “just normal things, you know? We’re at work, or at the beach. I cook for her.” He gave a self-deprecating laugh. “It’s stupid, right? I didn’t even know her for that long, and for half the time I _did_ know her I hated her guts.”

_Oh, Dan._ Chloe shook her head. “No.” She stroked his hand. “No, Dan. Of _course_ it isn’t stupid.”

He squeezed hers in reply. “Last night…” he hesitated. “Last night, I dreamed she was in Heaven.” He glanced at Chloe’s eyes and looked away again. “I know it sounds crazy, but…” he took a steadying breath, “I think it helped.”

_Oh…_ Chloe felt the room tilt. _Oh, oh, oh…._

“ _Dan,”_ she could hear the urgency in her own voice. He looked up. _“_ Dan,” Chloe repeated. She moved her other hand to his, holding it between her palms like a prayer. _So there was this, too…_ “Charlotte _is_ in Heaven, Dan,” she told him, knowing how it would sound, but needing him to believe it. “She really is. She’s in Heaven and she’s waiting for you.” _And so is my Dad._ She didn’t know where the thought came from but it squeezed the breath from her lungs with the force of truth. Her face felt hot. She pressed the back of her right hand to her lips, the pressure anchoring her, barely keeping her from folding forward around the sob that threatened to undo her. _Not here,_ she told herself. _Not now._ She inhaled deeply. Her left hand still held Dan’s and now he took the initiative to wrap another around it, mirroring her gesture from moments before.  

“Hey,” his voice was soft and soothing, slipping from pain into worry with the ease of habit. “Hey…Chloe, what’s wrong?”

Tears were falling now. She shook her head helplessly. “I—” she choked out, but couldn’t finish. She had seen death on so many faces and in so many forms. Her own death had stared back at her down the barrel of a gun too many times for her not to have thought about what would come next. The afterlife - to her, it had always been like Santa Claus or the Tooth Fairy. She wished that she could believe in it, but knew deep down that it was only a kind fiction - a nightlight to chase away the darkness. When her rational mind whispered thoughts of death to her at night, it told a very different tale. _Void. Emptiness. One day you and Trixie and everyone who ever knew or loved you will be gone and your memory will vanish into dust. Those who have gone before you are gone forever and although you will soon follow them, you will never meet again._ Death was the black hole at the end of her life, waiting to swallow the light. But now it was different. Now she _knew. My father is in Heaven and I will meet him again._  

She cried as quietly as she could, gasping for air as something half grief and half relief was torn out of her. Dan stroked her hand gently and whispered soothing nonsense until her breathing slowed. “I’m sorry,” she managed, eventually. She thought she had a grasp on it, but then another sob escaped her in a tiny, teary hiccup.“This is so _stupid_ ,” she groaned. “I was supposed to be the one comforting _you._ ”  

“It’s okay,” he reassured her. “You’ve been through a lot the past few days. It’s only natural for it to want to come out.” His lips twitched up a bit. “And actually, I think I feel better.”  

She snorted wetly in disbelief, rubbing her face with her sleeve. “Me crying made _you_ feel better.”  

Dan nodded, solemnly. “Yep. That’s how much I hate you.” 

This won a laugh and he grinned, only a little sadly. “Seriously, though. I’ve been so wrapped up in my own head that it felt good to get out of it for a bit, even if it was just to worry about you. It’s better when I’m at work, but when I come home there’s nothing to distract me and I just keep thinking what if-” his breath caught and he clenched his teeth. He bent his head back but his eyes couldn’t quite reabsorb the moisture that had formed there before it fell. “Some pair we make,” he tried for another smile. “Two hardened detectives crying our eyes out in an empty interrogation room. Good thing we locked the door.” 

“Dan—” Chloe hesitated, afraid of the words that were pushing past her lips. “Come stay with us.”  

“Chloe,” he protested, sitting up with a start. “I didn’t mean it like that. You don’t have to -”

“Just for a couple of weeks,” Chloe insisted, “until you’ve had some time to process. Trixie would love to spend more time with you,” she offered, “and with everything that’s happened with Pierce and with Maze, she could use the support.” _As could I,_ she didn’t say. "Besides," she added, "I'm kind of down a roommate right now."

Dan wanted to accept, she could see it in his eyes, but he held back. “ _Chloe,”_ he sounded out the edges of her name, as if he hadn’t said it in a while. “Is this really a good idea?”  

“Yes,” she said firmly. “It is.” To her surprise, it was the truth. Dan wasn’t her ex-husband anymore. They had both moved on from that a long time ago. He was her friend, and the father of her daughter, and he was in pain. “We might not be married anymore, Dan,” she told him gently, “but we’re still family. You don’t have to be alone right now.”  

Dan swallowed. “Oh.” His voice was rough. He collected himself. “Okay,” he told her. And then, “Thank you.”

***

_Ella Lopez sat alone in her lab, gazing at something small and white as she spun it between her thumb and forefinger. She didn’t know what had compelled her to take one from the crime scene. They had looked so beautifully out of place - like snow on a battlefield. She had chosen the smallest one, just the size of her palm and so easy to slip inside her pocket. She would have come clean to her friends eventually, she told herself, but it was too late now. Everything had changed. This morning she had seen it - just for a second. She had seen where the little feather had come from._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Crying is cathartic and awesome and you should try it sometime. So there.


	12. Chapter 12

“Damn you,” Lucifer told the air beneath him. It felt good to fly. He had been land-bound for so long. The muscles in his back groaned in pleasure as years of stiffness unwound, one beat at a time. The sense of relief made him want to scream. It should have hurt. He _wanted_ it to hurt, but the cursed things had already healed. _Three times in two days._ After holding out for so long he had used them three times in two days. _They’re mine,_ he told himself angrily. _Why shouldn’t I use them?_ And then, _I’ve already lost, so what does it matter?_

 _‘I’m done playing.’_ It had sounded grand in his head. Defiant, with just the right amount of threat. _And so?_ He asked himself. _What are you going to do about it? Will you storm the gates of Heaven? Charge up to the Almighty and demand retribution?_ _Get your ass handed to you again and why?_ _Because the big bad Devil got dumped by his girlfriend?_ No, Lucifer knew what he should do - what he should have done months ago. It’s a big planet. Plenty of places for a gentleman Devil to indulge in some harmless hedonism. All he had to do was walk away. Show his Father that he wasn’t going to fall for His stupid mind games.

Lucifer landed on the balcony outside of his penthouse. The sun was gentle on his back. The warmth of it was suffocating. Every muscle in his body cried out for action. He wanted to run. He wanted to fight. If he couldn’t reach his Father, then at least he wanted to find that self-righteous prick Amenadiel and rip his bleeding _face_ off. Unfortunately, that option was off the table now too, thanks to his brother’s Holy reinstatement. Amenadiel had flown away without second glance or a wave goodbye. For once his brother had the right idea. Lucifer should leave. Lucifer couldn’t leave. He slammed his fist into the railing; the metal warped and groaned. “IS THIS FUNNY TO YOU?” he shouted to the sky. “WHAT’S THE _POINT_? You can’t expect me to come running back to you so, WHY?” he punctuated the word with another fist. His breath came in short gasps. The world felt oddly distant, as if he were looking through a pane of glass. It was all his Father’s fault. It was always his Father’s fault. He was the one who made the Detective a bloody miracle. He was the one playing silly buggers with other people’s bodies. He was the one who couldn’t be bothered to love his wife, or protect his children, or stop his own stupid humans from destroying themselves in increasingly creative ways. He was the one always speaking in cryptic messages and running endless bloody _tests_. “IF YOU’RE SO ALL POWERFUL,” Lucifer shouted, “WHY DON’T YOU JUST -” It was then that a bottle of 1947  Château Cheval Blanc slammed into the back of his head.

_***_

As careers went, John Barrow felt that his was pretty average. The hours were unpredictable, but the pay was decent. His boss could be a hard-ass but, then again, that was why he was the boss. All in all, there were good days and bad days. Getting tied to a chair by the man he had been trying to kill definitely made this one of the bad days. On the bright side, plan B had gone embarrassingly well. A slight quiver in his voice had been all it took to lead the idiots off in search of his imaginary sister and into the Sinnerman’s trap. A few hours and a phone call later he was alone in the apartment. He didn’t know how long he struggled after that, but eventually the ropes gave way and he tumbled out of the chair, his limbs itching and tingling as the blood rushed back to his extremities. Clumsily, he stumbled to the toilet and relieved himself. That was one mark of shame he had somehow managed to live without. He took stock of the level of light outside. Already morning. It didn’t surprise him that his captors hadn’t returned as they would be long dead by now. It did surprise him that no one else had come to find him. His boss didn’t like to leave loose ends. One way or another, he shouldn’t have been trapped in the penthouse for as long as he had.

Suddenly a harsh, metallic screech resounded through the room and he spun on the balls of his feet, ready for an attack. He saw no one. The sound came again, and this time he recognized the source as coming from beyond the sliding glass doors which currently stood open to the city. Somehow, someone was still there, or he had missed them coming back. Carefully, he moved about the living room until he could see outside. It was the crazy Brit. John’s eyes narrowed. If he was still alive, then something had gone wrong. He wasn’t worried, though. The Sinnerman’s plans never went wrong for very long. John crept back to the living room and grabbed a suitable weapon. This was the part of his job that he liked.

He didn’t even have to work to be quiet as the other man was busy ranting at the sky like a lunatic. He tightened his fingers around the wine bottle. A swift hit to the back of the head would stun the man, maybe even be enough to finish him. The following stomp to his neck almost certainly would. It all went according to plan up until the moment that the bottle hit. Instead of dropping like a stone, the other man turned around slowly…. and smiled

“Why, if it isn’t Mr. _Hitman_ ,” the Brit singsonged in delight. “Don’t you know it’s rude to interrupt a private conversation? I’m surprised to see you still here. I would have thought you’d be all cleared out and fitted for some nice orange pajamas by now. I must say, though. Your timing is _impeccable.”_ The smile turned predatory, _“_ I could do to let off a little _steam_.”

John didn’t hesitate. Fingers extended in a letter V, he punched for the other man’s eyes. The club owner caught his hand in flight and, with a strength no man of his build should possess, snapped John’s wrist like a twig. He screamed.

“Now, now,” his opponent admonished, “that’s no way to greet an old friend, now is it?”

***

Lucifer watched in disdain as the man cried out, clutching uselessly at his wrist. It was almost comical, really. When would humans _learn?_ But honestly, he should thank the man for showing up when he did. A little punishment was _exactly_ what Lucifer needed. His opponent stepped warily backwards towards the door. He hid it well, but Lucifer could smell the fear rising in him - sharp and smoky, like aged whiskey. The scent burned through him and he laughed. This fear was his kingdom. He was in control here.

And then the hitman’s face changed. The eyes widened and the mouth gaped. His knees buckled to the ground. “No,” the man gasped.

Lucifer knelt in front of him, bringing the human’s face back to his eye level. “What?” he asked, mockingly. “Too used to shooting sleeping men and kicking puppies? Think you’re a big man because you know how to punch below your weight class but can’t take a little pain yourself?” The man whimpered pathetically and tried to shuffle backwards but Lucifer caught him forcefully by the collar and held him still. Sweat poured down the criminal’s putrid little face as he cried out in pain and terror. Lucifer frowned. Too much terror. The way the criminal’s pupils dilated and the hairs on his neck jumped to attention - it was more than just a broken wrist. He looked like a man who had glimpsed Hell.

“ _Monster,”_ the hitman breathed, in awe. Lucifer dropped his grip as if the man had burned him.

“ _What_ did you just say?” Lucifer asked, his voice dangerously quiet.

“ _M-”_ the human started but Lucifer’s hand was faster, snapping around the man’s throat like a viper, chocking back the word before it could materialize. Lucifer stood upright in one swift movement, dragging the man up with him before hurling him back inside the apartment.

“Sorry,” Lucifer breathed. “That wasn’t the best choice of words to use with me today.” He stared, fixated, at his hand, still outstretched in front of him from the throw. It was red as blood. He flexed his fingers experimentally, watching the light play over the familiar lines and ridges. Then he brought his hand up to his face, feeling his way along the hollow contours of his cheeks and up over the wrinkled, hairless crown. _So,_ he thought. _It’s back. Good._

He looked over to the hitman, struggling to get up off the floor where he’d landed. Slowly,Lucifer stalked over to the man. He took his time, letting his victim soak in the full force of his presence with each deliberate step. “So,” he snarled. “I’m a monster, am I?” The hitman found his feet and lost them again, tripping over himself as he scrambled for the elevator. “Let me tell you a secret, _Johnny_ ,” Lucifer hissed. “I _earned_ this face. Through fire and blood and pain I _earned_ this face and every ounce of fear that comes with it. But _you,_ ” his voice dripped with disgust. “What are _you_?” The hitman was at the elevator door, fumbling for the button with his good hand. Lucifer reached him with his next step, causing the human to freeze in place, and wrapped an arm casually around the other man’s throat. “You’re just a garden variety _murderer_ ,” the Devil whispered in his ear.

With a _ding_ the elevator opened. Suddenly tired of the game, Lucifer unwrapped his arm. “Get out,” he said. The man did.

Lucifer walked over to the bar and poured himself a drink. _You’re just a murderer,_ the empty room echoed back at him. He poured himself another.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I gave you ONE JOB, Daniel. Don't forget the hitman!


End file.
